If the fates favored Major Alan Hawke upon this eventful day, for as he
was contentedly awaiting the news of Ram Lal’s departure for Allahabad,
the card of Captain Harry Hardwicke, A. D. C., and of the Engineers, was
sent up to him. With a neat bit of Indian art, old Ram Lal had sent the
carriage around to report, as a mute signal of his own departure. It was
a flood tide of good fortune!
In ten minutes, the Major and his welcome guest were spinning along in
the cool of the evening, toward the deserted ruins of the old city of
Delhi! As they passed through the Lahore gate, Hardwicke’s pith helmet
was doffed with a jerk, as a superb carriage passed them, proceeding in
a stately swing. Major Alan Hawke bowed low as he caught the cold eye of
the would-be Sir Hugh Johnstone.
“Who are the ladies, Hardwicke?” laughed the Major, as he saw the young
officer’s face suddenly crimson. “For a man who won the V. C. in your
dashing style, you seem to be a bit beauty-shy!” They were hardly
settled yet for their cozy chat. Hardwicke lit a cheroot to cover his
evident confusion.
“I know” he slowly answered, “that one of them is Miss or Madame
Delande, old Fraser’s house duenna--I will still call him Fraser, you
see--the other is the mystery of Delhi. Popularly supposed to be the old
boy’s daughter, and his sole heiress, Miss Nadine,” concluded the young
aid-de-camp. “The old curmudgeon keeps her judiciously veiled from
mortal ken. No man but General Willoughby has ever exchanged a word with
her. The dear old boy--his memory does not go back beyond his last B.
and S.--he can’t even sketch her beauty in words. And she is as hazy,
even to the Madam-General--our secret commanding officer. There is a
continuous affront to society in this old monomaniac’s treatment of that
girl.”
“You would like to storm the Castle Perilous, and awaken the Sleeping
Beauty?” archly said Hawke, as they rolled along under a huge alley of
banyan trees.
“Not at all,” gravely said Hardwicke. “She is only a girl, like other
girls, I presume; but, this old fool is only fit for the old days,
when the kings of Oude flew kites and hunted with the cheetah; or,
half drunken, dozed, lolling away their lives in these marble-screened
zenanas, with the automatic beauties of the seraglio. Our English cannon
have knocked all that nonsense silly. Here is a high-spirited, Christian
English girl, shut up like a slave. It’s only the unfairness of the
thing that strikes me.” Hawke eyed the blue-eyed, rosy young fellow of
twenty-six with an evident interest. Stalwart and symmetrical in figure,
Hardwicke’s frank, manly face glowed in indignation.
“You’ve won your spurs quickly out here,” said Hawke. “You have not
been long enough in India to case-harden into the cursed egotism of this
hard-hearted land, and remember, age, crawling on, has indurated old
‘Fraser-Johnstone.’ He was never an amiable character. What do the
ladies of the city say of this strange social situation? I never knew
that the old beast had a daughter till to-day.”
Captain Hardwicke wearily replied: “They all hold aloof, of course,
after some very rough rebuffs, as I believe the old boy will clear out
for good when he gets his baronetcy. It’s possible that the girl is
half a foreigner after all,” mused Hardwicke. “The duenna is surely a
continental.”
“Yes; but she seems to be a very nice person. I was there to-day at
tiffin,” finally said Major Hawke,
“She had very little to say, and cleared out at once. I did not see Miss
Johnstone.” They fell into an easy, rattling chronicle of things past
and present, and before the two hours’ ride was over, the astute Major
felt that he had divined General Willoughby’s object in sending his pet
aid-de-camp to reconnoitre Hawke’s lines and pierce the mystery of his
rumored employment.
“I suppose that you will come up and duly report to the Chief,” rather
uneasily said Captain Hardwicke, as they neared the Club on their
return. Hawke cast a glance at the superb domes of the Jumma Musjid
towering in the thin air above them, as he slowly answered:
“I am only here on a roving secret commission. I shall call, of course,
and pay my personal respects to His Excellency, the General Commanding.
I am an official will-o’-the-wisp, just now, but my blushing honors
are strictly civil, and, by the way, in expectancy. Where does your
promotion carry you?”
“Oh, anywhere--everywhere,” laughed Hardwicke. “I may be sent home. I’m
entitled to a long leave--there’s my wound, you know. I’ve only stayed
on here to oblige Willoughby.” It was easy to see that the frank,
splendid young fellow was but awkwardly filling his role of polite
inquisitor, for they talked shop a couple of hours over a bottle at the
Club, and Hardwicke at last took his leave, no whit the wiser.
“If he did not post me as to the heiress, at least, old Willoughby gets
no valuable information,” laughed the Major, that night. “The boy seems
to be ambitious and heart-whole. Old Johnstone will soon clear out
to the Highlands, I suppose, with this hidden pearl.” But Major Hawke
laughed softly when the morning brought to him a personal invitation to
dine “informally” with General Willoughby. “Wants to know, you know,”
laughed the Major. “All I have to do is to keep cool and let him drink
himself jolly, and so, answer his own questions.”
“That Hardwicke is an uncommonly fine young fellow.” So decided the
Major as he splashed into his morning tub. There was one man, however,
in Delhi who now viewed Hawke’s presence with a secret alarm, amounting
to dismay. It was the stern old miserly Scotsman who had paced his floor
half the night in a vain effort to reassure himself. “What does he know?
I must have old Ram Lal watch him,” mused Hugh Johnstone. “I was a fool
not to have cleared out from here months ago, before these spies were
set upon me. First, Anstruther; now this fellow, Hawke, and, perhaps,
even Hardwicke. If it were not for the old matter I would go to-morrow,
and let the Baronetcy go hang--or find me in the Highlands. But, I must
make one last attempt to get them out. I must--” and the old man slept
the weary sleep of utter exhaustion.
Before the nabob awoke, Captain Henry Hardwicke, swinging away on his
morning gallop, had reviewed the strange attitude of Major Hawke. “He is
very intimate with Hugh Johnstone, and he is a man of the world, too. I
will yet see this charming child, when the ban of her prison seclusion
is lifted.” He vaguely remembered the one timid and girlish glance of
the beautiful dark eyes, when he had been presented, pro-forma, to the
Veiled Rose upon that one memorable state visit. He then rode out of his
way to gaze at the exterior of the great marble house, and was rewarded
by the sight of a graceful woman walking there under her governess’s
escort in the dewy freshness of the early morn.
He doffed his helmet as Miss Justine paused among the flowers, and then
Miss Nadine Johnstone looked up to see the graceful rider disappear
behind the fringing trees.
“That was Captain Hardwicke, was it not?” asked the lonely girl. Miss
Justine was busied in dreaming of her meeting of the morrow.
“Yes, it was,” she absently replied.
“They tell me that he nobly risked his life to save his wounded friend,”
dreamily continued Nadine. “He gave back to a father the life of an only
son at the risk of his own. How brave--how noble.” And Justine gazed at
her charge in surprise, as the beautiful Nadine bent her head to greet
her sister flowers.
The resolute Major Hawke, at his cheerful breakfast, was busied with
thoughts of the coming arrival of Hugh Johnstone’s secret foe. “I must
have money from her at once to swing Ram Lal’s Private Inquiry Bureau
and to mystify these quid nuncs here. For I must entertain the clubmen a
bit. It’s as well to begin, also, to pot down a bit of her money for
the future. She shall pay her way, as she goes.” And, with a view to the
further cementing of his rising social pyramid, he planned a very neat
little dinner of half a dozen of the most available men whom he had
selected as being “in the swim.” “The next thing is to discover what the
devil she really wants of old Johnstone! She must show her hand now, and
then soon call on me for help.”
He gazed at his little memorandum of “pressing engagements.” “A pretty
fair book of events. First, old Johnstone’s dinner--more of the
boring process--then to welcome my strange employer, and, after that,
Mademoiselle Justine! Later, I’ll have my own little innings with
General Willoughby, and, finally play the gracious host while Ram Lal
watches Madame Louison’s cat-like play upon her victim. Money I must
have, her money first, to pay the piper,” he laughed, which proposed
liberality was destined to doubly bribe the wily old jewel merchant. At
that very moment Ram Lal, securely hidden away in the native compartment
of the train, rushing on from Allahabad toward Delhi, was dreaming of
the long-deferred triumph of a life!
“If he has them--if they can be traced--they shall be mine if every
diamond gleams red with his heart’s blood! Perhaps these two strange
people have brought them. Who knows? They are rich; it may be the
jewels!” And Ram Lal dreamed of a tripartite watch upon the three
principal figures of the opening drama. “The jewels were a king’s
ransom. But I shall know all,” he softly smiled, for every attendant of
the beautiful recluse now burning to meet her advance spy was a sworn
confederate of Ram Lal in a dark brotherhood whose very name no man
even dared to lisp! And so the long, blazing day wore away, bringing the
hunter and the hunted nearer together. The mysterious bungalow was now
alive with the slaves of luxury, while Alan Hawke secretly inspected
the last finishing touches, for he, alone, was master of the private
entrance once used by a man whose glittering rank had lifted him
presumably above all human weaknesses!
Major Hawke departed for the Club in a very good humor, after his hour
of inspection of the jewel box bungalow now ready for his fair employer.
It was a perfect cachette d’ amour, and its superb gardens, so long
deserted, were now only a tangled jungle of luxuriant loveliness!
The light foot of the beauty for whom this Rosamond’s Bower had been
prepared had wandered far away, for a substantial block of marble now
held down the great man, who had in the old days found the welcome of
his hidden Egeria so delicious in this long-deserted bungalow. For
the dead Numa Pompilius slept now with his fathers, in far away Merrie
England, and--as is the wont--the mortuary inscriptions on his tomb
recorded only his virtues. But both his virtues and failings were of
no greater weight now to a forgetful generation, which knew not the
departed Joseph, than the drifted leaves in the garden alleys where the
romance of the old still lingered in ghostly guise! “There were no
birds in last year’s nest,” but the mysterious bungalow had been hastily
arranged for the lovely successor to the vanished queen of a cobweb
Paradise. The bungalow, itself, was adroitly constructed with a special
reference to seclusion as well as comfort. An Indian Love’s Labyrinth.
“Just the very place!” murmured Alan Hawke, as he hastened away to dress
for the diner de famille, with his timorous secret foe, Hugh Johnstone.
“I wonder if my canny friend, in his humble days as Hugh Fraser, ever
assisted at les petits diners de Trianon here?
“Probably not, for friend Hugh was ever apter in squeezing the nimble
rupee than in chanting sonnets to his mistress’s eyebrow. How the devil
did he ever catch a wife, such as Valerie Delavigne must have been?
Either a case of purchase or starvation, I’ll warrant!”
Ram Lal Singh was growing dubious as to the perfect sweep of his hungry
talons over Madame Louison’s future expenditures. He had noted, with
some secret alarm, a grave-faced, sturdy Frenchman, still in the
forties, who was cast in the role of either courier or butler for the
beautiful Mem-Sahib, whose loveliness in extenso he so far only divined
by guess-work.
In the stranger lady’s special car there was also, at her side, a
truculent Parisienne-looking woman of thirty, whose bustling air,
hawk-like visage, and perfect aplomb bespoke the confidential French
maid. “I must tell Hawke Sahib of this at once,” mused Ram Lal. “We
must, in some way, get rid of these foreign servants.” The man had
a semi-military air, heightened by the sweeping scar--a slash from a
neatly swung saber. This purple facial adornment was Jules Victor’s
especial pride. In these days of “ninety” he often recurred to the
stroke which had made his fortune in the dark reign of the Commune.
As a wild Communard soldier he had risked his life vainly to save the
aged Colonel Delavigne from a furious mob, for the red rosette in the
old officer’s buttonhole had cost him his life in an awkward promenade,
and this sent the orphans, Valerie and Alixe Delavigne, adrift upon
the mad maelstrom of Paris incendie. While Ram Lal glowered in his
dissatisfaction, Madame Berthe Louison complacently regarded her two
secret protectors on guard in the special car. For the strange turn of
Fortune’s wheel, which had left Alixe Delavigne alone in the world,
and rich enough to effect her special vengeance upon her one enemy,
had given to Jules Victor and his wife Marie a sinecure for life as the
personal attendants of the soi-disant Madame Berthe Louison.
Marie was but a wild-eyed child of ten when Jules had picked her up in
the flaming streets of Paris, and they had graduated together from the
gutters of Montmartre into the later control of Madame Louison’s pretty
little pied a terre in Paris, hard by Auteuil, in that dreamy
little impasse, the Rue de Berlioz. Neither of these attendants were
faint-hearted, for their young hearts had been attuned early to the
wolfish precocity of the Parisian waif. And they had followed their
resolute mistress in her weary quest of the past years.
Berthe Louison smiled in a comforting sense of security, as she gazed
listlessly out upon the landscape flying by.
The two servants, modestly voyaging out to Calcutta, on a telegraphic
summons, to embark at Marseilles, had preceded the Empress of India by
ten days. So, neither friendless, nor without untiring devotion, was
the wary woman who had thus secretly armed herself against any “little
mistake” on the part of Major Alan Hawke. Certain private instructions
to the manager of Grindlay & Co., at Calcutta, had caused that
respectable party to open his eyes in wonder.
“Of course, Madame, our local agent at Delhi will act in your behalf,
with both secrecy and discretion. I have already written him a private
cipher letter in regard to your every wish being fulfilled.”
Such is the potent influence of a letter of credit, practically
approaching the “unlimited.”
“If I could only use Jules in the double capacity of gentleman and
factotum, I would dress him up a la mode and let him approach Hugh
Johnstone,” mused the beautiful tourist, but I must be content to use
this cold-hearted adventurer Hawke, for he has at least a surface rank
of gentleman, and, moreover, he knows my enemy! I must keep Jules and
Marie every moment at my side, for some strange things happen in India
by day as well as by night. Sir Hugh may dream of some ‘unusually
distressing accident’ as a means of safely ridding himself of a long
slumbering specter.”
“Of course, this sly jeweler is Alan Hawke’s spy! A few guineas extra,
however, may buy his ‘inner consciousness’ for me,” she mused. And so it
fell out that Ram Lal Singh was destined to drop into the secret
service of both Hawke and the fair invader! And, as yet, neither of his
intending employers could divine the dark purposes of the oily rascal
who had stealthily watched Hugh Fraser for long years to slake the
hungry vengeance of a despoiled traitor to the last King of Oude.
Major Hawke found the tete a tete dinner with Hugh Johnstone a mere dull
social parade. There was no demure face at the feast slyly regarding
him, for while the two watchful secret foes exchanged old reminiscence
and newer gossip, Justine Delande was cheering the lonely girl, whose
silent mutiny as to her shining prison life now reached almost an open
revolt. It was a grateful relief to the Swiss woman, whose agitated
heart was softly beating the refrain: “To-morrow! to-morrow! I shall see
him again!” She feared a self-betrayal!
While the governess mused upon the extent of her proposed revelations to
the handsome Major, that rising social star had adroitly exploited his
long tete a tete with Captain Hardwicke to his host, and gracefully
magnified the warmth of General Willoughby’s personal welcome.
“You see, Johnstone,” patiently admitted the man who had dropped into a
good thing, “They all want to delve into the secrets of my mission here.
You, of all men,” he meaningly said, “cannot blame me for throwing
the dust into their eyes. I detest this intrusion, and so in sheer
self-defense I am going to give a formal dinner to a lot of these
bores, and then cut the whole lot when I’ve once done the decent thing.”
Circling and circling, and yet never daring to approach the subject,
old Hugh Johnstone warily returned to the suspended baronetcy affair, at
last revealing his secret burning anxieties. But when Alan Hawke heard
the train whistles, announcing the arrival of his beautiful employer, he
fled away from the smoking-room in a mock official unrest.
“I am expecting dispatches from England, and also very important
detailed secret instructions. I’ve had a warning wire from Calcutta.”
He had broken off the seance brusquely with a design of his own, and
he rejoiced as Hugh Johnstone brokenly said: “Let me see you very soon
again. I must have a plain talk with you.” The old nabob was in a close
corner now. There had been a few bitter queries from the half-distracted
girl which showed, even to her stern old father, that his position was
becoming untenable.
“Damn it! I must either talk or send her away,” he growled when left
alone. “I’ve half a mind to telegraph Douglas Fraser to come here and
convoy this foolish young minx home to Europe. She may grow to be a
silent rebel like her mother.” His scowl darkened. “And yet, where to
send her? I ought to go with them. Can I trust the Delandes to find
a safe place to keep her till I come?” He was all unaware that his
daughter Nadine was now a woman like her bolder sisters of society, but
it was true. The chrysalis was nearing the butterfly stage of life and
beating the bars with her wings.
The secret exultation of Justine Delande in her shadowy hold on Major
Alan Hawke caused her to furtively lead Nadine Johnstone to the head of
the great stairway, when Hawke made his adieux.
“He is a handsome young officer,” timidly whispered the girl, shrinking
back out of sight. “What can he have in common with my father? I thought
he was some old veteran.” And the awakened heart of Justine Delande
bounded in delight. She would have joyed to tell Nadine of her own
romantic budding friendship, but a wholesome fear tied her tongue, and
she was only happy when caressing the diamond bracelet that night, which
encircled her arm, while with dry and aching eyes she waited for the
dawn.
While Hugh Johnstone paced the veranda of his lonely marble palace that
night, a prey to vague fears, and unwilling to face the accusing eyes of
his daughter, Major Alan Hawke, with a sudden astonishment, stood mute
before the splendid woman who received him in the mysterious bungalow.
There was scant ceremony of greeting between them, for Berthe Louison
impatiently grasped his hands.
“He is here, and the girl, too,” she said, with blazing eyes. She stood
robed as a queen before her secret agent. “Where were you? You left me
here to wait in a torment of anxiety.”
“I have just come from his dinner table,” quietly said the startled
Major. “They are both here, and well. I am already intimate at the
house, but I have not seen the girl. I feared being followed or I would
have met you at the train.” He marveled at her royal beauty. She was
conscious now of the power of wealth, and some hidden fire glowed in her
veins. “What can I do for you? He watches me. I can only come at night.”
“Ah!” the lady sternly said, “we must then play at hide and seek!”
Ringing a silver bell twice, Madame Louison sank into a chair. Alan
Hawke started up, inquiringly, as Jules and Marie entered the room from
an ante-room, whose door was left ajar.
“Jules! Marie!” calmly said Madame Louison. “This gentleman is my secret
business agent. He will call here in the evenings very often. He has
pass keys of his own, and you need not announce him. He is the only
person who has the right to be in my house--at all times.” The husband
and wife bowed in silence and, at a gesture from their mistress,
departed silently, having mentally photographed the newcomer.
Gazing in open-eyed astonishment, the surprised Major faltered, “Who are
these people? Why did you do this strange thing?”
“To assure myself of safety,” quietly smiled Berthe Louison. “They are
my personal servants, whom I brought on from Calcutta, and I have reason
to believe that Jules is both alert and courageous. He is a veteran
of the Tonquin war, and that pretty scar was a present from the Black
Flags. They were selected by one who knows the wiles of my desperate
enemy Johnstone.”
“Now, Major Hawke, let us to business” calmly continued Berthe, secretly
enjoying Alan Hawke’s dismay. “Tell me your whole story. Only the events
since your arrival here. The rest counts for nothing. We are all on
the ground here and I propose to act quickly. I learned some matters in
Calcutta which have greatly enlightened me.” The facile tongue of the
renegade was slow to do the bidding of his unready brain. “Damme! But
she’s a cool one!” the ex-officer concluded, as he caught his breath.
But, conscious of her watchful eye, he related all his adventures, with
a judicious reserve as to Justine Delande. The burning eyes of Berthe
Louison were steadily fixed upon the relator’s face, and she was coldly
noncommittal when Hawke paused for breath and a mental recapitulation.
The Major now gazed upon her immovable visage. There was neither joy nor
sorrow, neither the flush of anger nor the trembling of rage, awakened
by the businesslike presentment of the social facts. “She is a human
icicle,” he mused. “She has some deadly hold on him!”
“Can you trust this Ram Lal Singh?” the woman demanded in a
business-like tone. Alan Hawke nodded decisively.
“He knows Hugh Fraser Johnstone well?” queried Berthe.
“They have been companions in the mixed line or Delhi since the mutiny,”
earnestly replied Hawke, slowly concluding: “And Ram Lal has been
Johnstone’s broker in selecting his almost unequaled Indian collection.
Ram is a thief, like all Hindus, but he is square to me. I hold him
in my hand. You can trust to him, but only through me!” Berthe Louison
raised her eyes and then fixed a searching glance upon Alan Hawke, as if
she would read his very soul.
“And, can I trust you?” she said, almost solemnly.
“You remember our strange compact, Madame,” coldly said Alan Hawke.
“Here, face to face with the enemy, I expect to know what is required of
me--and also what my future recompense will be.”
“Ah, I forgot,” mused the strange lady of the bungalow. “You have the
right to teach me a lesson, in both manners and business. I forgot how
sharply I had drawn the line, myself. Well, Sir, I will trust to you
without any assurance on your part.” She rang the silver bell at her
side, once, and the silent Jules appeared, as attentive as Rastighello
in the boudoir of the Duchess of Ferrara. “My traveling bag, Jules,”
said the lady, in a careless tone. There was a silence punctuated only
by Alan Hawke’s heavy breathing, until the silent servitor returned,
bowing and departing without a word, as he placed the bag at Madame
Louison’s side. With a businesslike air, the lady handed Alan Hawke a
sealed letter, addressed simply:
HUGH FRASER JOHNSTONE, ESQ., DELHI.
Near at hand, in the opened bag, the watchful Major saw the revolver and
dagger once more which he had noted, at Lausanne.
“Let Ram Lal deliver that personally to the would-be Baronet, to-morrow
morning at eight o’clock. He is to say nothing. There will be no reply,”
measuredly remarked the strange woman whose life as Alixe Delavigne had
brought to her the legacy of an undying hatred for the man whom she was
about to face. “This will bring Hugh Johnstone to me at once!”
“That is all?” stammered Alan Hawke, as he received the document,
respectfully standing “at attention.”
“No, not quite all!” laughed Berthe Louison. “Pray continue a career of
judiciously liberal social splendor here, an external ‘swelling port’
just suited to a man whose feet are planted upon a financial rock. But
do not overdo it! It might excite Hugh Johnstone’s alarm. Here is five
hundred pounds in notes. There will be no accounts between us.”
“And, I am to do nothing else?” cried Hawke, in surprise. “I fear to
have you meet this man alone! He is rich, powerful, and crafty. The
nature of your business, I fear, is that of deadly quarrel. Remember,
this man is at bay. He is unscrupulous. I fear for you!”
The renegade spoke only the truth. For dark memories of Hugh Fraser’s
bitter deeds in days past now thronged upon his brain.
“Fear not for me.” cried Berthe Louison, springing up like a tigress in
defense of her cubs. “Do you know that his life would be the forfeit of
a lifted finger? Do you take me for a blind fool?” she raged. “Do you
know the power of gold? Ah, my friend, there are unseen eyes watching my
pathway here, and may God have mercy upon any one who practices against
me, in secret! Any ‘strange happening’ to me would be fearfully avenged!
As for this flinty-hearted brute, he would never even reach that
threshold alive, if he dared to threaten! Go! Leave him to me. Come here
to-morrow night. I shall have need of your cool brain and your ready
wit! My only task was to find him and the girl together.”
“And if I am questioned about you? If anything occurs?” persisted Alan
Hawke.
“Simply ignore my existence; if we meet we are strangers!” gasped
Berthe, who had thrown herself on a divan. “Obey me without questioning
my motive! Each night you will receive orders for the next day, should I
need your secret hand! Go now! I am tired! I must be ready to meet this
man!”
Alan Hawke had reached the door, but he turned back. “And as to Ram Lal?
What shall I do?” The woman’s eyes flashed fire.
“Leave him also to me! I will handle him! A few rupees--will serve
as his bait. Stay! You say that this Swiss woman, Justine Delande, is
sympathetic, and seems to be a worthy person?” She was scanning his
impassive face with steely glances now.
“She is younger than her sister Euphrosyne,” gravely said Alan Hawke,
“and not without some personal attractions. Her older sister adores her.
Even this old brute, Johnstone, seems to treat her with great respect
and deference.”
“There is the only danger to us! Watch that woman! Mingle freely in the
Johnstone household,” said Berthe, wearily, “but never cast your eyes
toward Nadine. Never even hint to this Swiss governess that you have
seen her sister. After they return to Europe it is another thing.
Silence and discretion now. Good night. Come to-morrow night at ten
o’clock; all will be quiet, and you can steal away from the Club in
safety.”
Major Alan Hawke stole away to the hidden entrance like a thief of the
night. He started as he saw the menacing figure of Jules Victor glide
swiftly after him to the secret opening in the wall. The servitor spoke
not a single word, but watched the business agent disappear. “I must
watch this damned Frenchman,” he mused, feeling for his packet of notes
and loosening his revolver. “He may be set on by this she devil to watch
Ram Lal.” And then Hawke gayly sought the jewel merchant, lingering
an hour in the very room where he was on the morrow to meet the
heart-awakened Justine. Old Ram Lal grinned as he accepted the letter.
He was happy, for he heard the jingling of golden guineas in the near
future. “You have nothing to do with me, Ram Lal,” laughed the Major.
“The lady will give you your orders, only you are to tell me all for
both our sakes. I will see you rewarded,” and again Ram Lal grinned in
his quiet way.
When Alan Hawke’s head was resting on his pillow he suddenly became
possessed with a strange new fear. “By God! I believe that she has been
here before; she seems to be up to the whole game.”
Alan Hawke’s steps hardly died away in the hallway before the beautiful
Nemesis made a careful inspection of her splendid reception-room. The
splendors of its curtained arches, its fretted ceiling, and its frescoed
walls were idly passed over, for the woman only made an exhaustive
survey of its geometrical arrangement. Marie Victor was in waiting at
her side, and the mistress and maid were soon joined by Jules. Throwing
open the door of a little adjoining cabinet, Madame Louison whispered a
few private directions to the ex-Communard. “Do this at once yourself;
none of the blacks are to know. I trust none of them!” imperatively
commanded Berthe. “Marie will receive him. You are to be here at nine
o’clock, and be sure to let no one of these yellow spies observe you.
Now, both of you. Here is the rearrangement of the furniture. This will
be your first task in the morning. You can both use the whole household
for these changes. They are to obey you in all. Let all be ready when
I have breakfasted. Now, Marie, I will try and rest. Jules, inspect and
examine the house; then you can take your post for the night at my door.
Have you exhausted every possibility of any trickery in the sleeping
room?”
“There’s but the one door, Madame. Trust to me. I have sounded every
inch of the walls, and even examined the floor.” Jules Victor’s romantic
nature thrilled with the possibilities of the little life drama to come.
Berthe Louison departed to rest upon her arms the night before the
battle. Much marveled the swarming band of Ram Lal’s creatures that no
human being was suffered to approach the Lady of the Bungalow but her
two white attendants. Berthe Louison had not reached the idle luxury of
employing a dozen Hindus in infinitesimal labors near her person. For
she fathomed easily Ram Lal’s devotion to Major Alan Hawke.
The presence of keen-eyed Marie Victor’s brass camp-bed in My Lady’s
sleeping-room was a source of wonder to the velvet-eyed spy who was
Ram Lal’s especial “Bureau of Intelligence.” “Strange ways has this
Mem-Sahib,” murmured the Hindu when he craved to know if the Daughter of
the Sun and Light of the World desired aught. “I will then have two to
watch. The waiting woman has the eye of a tiger.”
A personal verification of the fact that Jules Victor was encamped for
the night, en zouave, on a divan drawn before the only door joining the
boudoir and sleeping-room, caused the sly spy to greatly marvel, for the
scarred face of the French social rebel was ominously truculent, and a
pair of Lefacheux revolvers and a heavy knife lay within the ready reach
of this strange “outside guard.”
In the dim watches of the first night in Delhi, the same barefooted
Hindu spy learned by a visit of furtive inspection, that a night light
steadily burned in the boudoir where Jules was toujours pret. The
sneaking rascal crept away, with a violently beating heart, fearing even
the rustle of his bare feet upon the mosaic floor.
And all this, and much more, did he deliver with abject humility to
Ram Lal Singh, when that worthy appeared the next day to crave his
mysterious patron’s orders. It seemed a tough nut to crack, this
tripartite household arrangement.
The dawn found Madame Berthe Louison as alertly awake as bird and beast
stirring in the ruined splendors of old Shahjehanabad. Long before the
anxious Justine Delande arose to deck herself furtively for her tryst
with Alan Hawke, Berthe Louison knew that all her orders of the night
before were executed.
“You are sure that you can see perfectly, Jules?” said the anxious
woman.
“I command the whole side of the room where you will be seated,” replied
the Frenchman, “and the ornaments and carved tracery cover the aperture.
Marie has tested it and I have also done the same, reversing our
positions. Nothing can be seen.”
“Good! Remember! Nine o’clock sees you at your post! You are prepared?”
The woman’s voice trembled.
“Thoroughly!” cried the alert servitor, “Only give me your signal! I
must make no mistake! There’s no time to think in such cases!” He bent
his head, while his mistress, in a low voice gave her last orders. Jules
saluted, as if he were the leader of a forlorn hope.
“And now for the first skirmish!” mused Berthe Louison, as she
personally examined some matters, of more material interest to her, in
the reception-room.
The rearrangement of the furniture seemed to be satisfactory, and Madame
Berthe Louison composedly busied herself with the arrangement of a
writing case, and a few womanly articles upon the table which she had
chosen as her own peculiar fortification. A few moments were wasted upon
trifling with a well-worn envelope, now carefully hidden in her bosom.
This maneuver passed the time needed for a stately carriage to sweep up
from the opened grand gate of the bungalow to the raised veranda steps.
“There he is!” she grimly said. “Now, for the first blood!”
A man who was shaking with mingled rage and fear hastily strode across
the broad portico, as Berthe Louison glided away from the curtained
window and confidently resumed her own chosen chair. Her bosom was
heaving, her eye was fixed and stern, and she steadily awaited her foe,
for one last warning whisper had reached her hidden servitor.
When Marie Victor threw open the double doors of the reception room, on
its threshold stood the towering form of the man whom Alixe Delavigne
had known in other years as Hugh Fraser, the man whose pallid face told
her that he knew at last that he was under the sword of Damocles! Clad
in white linen, his sun helmet in his hand, steadying himself with a
jeweled bamboo crutch-handled stick, the old Anglo-Indian waited until
Berthe Louison’s voice rang out, as clear as a silver bell: “Marie! I
am not to be interrupted.” she calmly said. “You may wait beyond, in the
ante-room!”
The woman who had emerged from the dark penumbra of a dead Past,
to torture the embryo Baronet, gazed silently at the stern old man
glowering there.
Striding up to her, the insolent habit of years was, strong upon him, as
he hoarsely said: “What juggling fiend of hell brings you here?”
Without a tremor in her voice, the lady of Jitomir replied:
“I came here to undo the work of years! To teach an orphaned girl to
know that a love which hallows and which blesses, can reach her from the
grave in which your cold brutality buried the only being I ever loved!
She shall know her mother, from my lips, and not wither in the gray hell
of your egoism. I have searched the world over, and found you, at last,
together!”
“By God! You shall never even see her face, you she-devil!” cried the
infuriated old man, nearing the defiant woman. “You were the go-between
for your worthless sister and that Russian cur, Troubetskoi!”
“You lie! Hugh Fraser, you lie!” cried Berthe, in a ringing voice. “You
crushed the flower that Fate had drifted within your reach! You turned
her into the streets of London to starve! You robbed her of her child,
all this to feed your own flinty-hearted tyrant vanity! She was divorced
from you by a Royal Russian Decree, before she married the man whose
heart broke when she was laid in the tomb. She rests with the princes of
his line, and her tomb bears the name of wife!”
The old nabob crept nearer, growling:
“You shall never see the child’s face!”
Then, Alixe Delavigne sprang up and faced him: “There she is! on my
heart! Just what her mother was, before you sent her to an early grave.
Valerie died hungering for one sight of that child’s face!” Throwing
the picture of Nadine Johnstone on the table, the lady of Jitomir said:
“Pierre Troubetskoi left to me the wealth which makes me your equal. I
fear you not! I shall see Nadine to-morrow!”
“Never!” roared Hugh Johnstone, now beyond all control. “I defy you!
Beware how you approach my threshold!” His eyes were murderous in their
steely blue gleam, and, yet, he met a glance as steady as his own.
“Listen,” said Berthe Louison, sinking back into her chair, “I will tell
you a little story.” Hugh Johnstone was now gazing at the photograph,
which trembled in his hand. “Once upon a time a man secreted a vast
deposit of jewels, really the spoil of a deposed king, and, rightly, the
property of the victorious British Government!” The photograph fell to
the floor as the old man sprang up from the chair, into which he had
dropped. “This paper, the receipt for the deposit, once delivered to the
Viceroy of India--and the Baronetcy which is to be your life crown is
lost for ever.” The old man’s hands knotted themselves in anger. “The
lying story that the deposit was stolen by an underling will bring
you, Hugh Johnstone, to the felon’s cell! You shall live to wear the
convict’s chain! The Government is partly aware of the facts. It rests
for me to give the Viceroy the receipt for your private deposit. The
private bank vault in Calcutta has hidden your shame for twenty years.
You know the condition of your settlement with the Government. Now,
shall I see my sister’s child? I hold your very existence here--in the
hollow of my hand!” The dauntless woman drew forth a yellowed envelope
from her breast. There was a smothered shriek, a crash and a groan, as
Jules Victor, springing from his concealment, hurled the infuriated man
to the floor!
With a knee on the panting nabob’s breast, he hissed:
“Move, and you are a dead man!”
“Take the paper, Madame,” calmly said the victorious Jules. Then Alixe
Delavigne laughed scornfully.
“Let the fool arise. The contents are only blank paper. The document
is where I can find it for use. Remain here, Jules,” concluded the
triumphant woman, as she replaced the photograph in her bosom. “Take the
envelope--you know it, Hugh Fraser. I stole it the night you drove
the sister I loved from our miserly lodgings in London.” The furious
onslaught had failed, and the old nabob was only a cowering, cringing
prisoner at will. He dared not even cry out.
Hugh Johnstone groaned as his eyes turned from the woman, now laughing
him to scorn, to the stern-faced Frenchman, who was covering the baffled
assailant with the grim Lefacheux revolver.
“Send this man away. Let us talk, Alixe,” muttered the astounded
Johnstone. Then a mocking laugh rang out in the room.
“I am in no hurry now. I can wait. I like Delhi, and I shall find my way
to Nadine’s side, and she shall know the story of a mother’s love. One
signal from me, by telegraph, and the document goes to the Viceroy. So,
I fear you not, my would-be strangler! It is for me to make conditions!
Listen! I will send my carriage and my man to your house to-morrow
morning at ten. You will have made up your mind then. I have friends
all around me, here, at Allahabad, and in Calcutta. If you practice any
treachery on me you die the death of a dog, even here, in your robber
nest!”
“I will come! I will come!” faltered Johnstone.
“Ah!” smiled the lady. “Jules, show Sir Hugh Johnstone to his carriage.”
And then turning her back in disdain, she vanished without a word.